Magazine Series

A friend recently showed up at my workshop complaining that his chainsaw was “bogging” and wouldn’t run at full throttle. He assumed the issue was related to fuel delivery…

Arising before dawn in ritual pursuit aware of austerity, sharp, acute a chill that has settled and defines for a time the spoils of silently watching. As the hoary frost on crimson leaves…

Murph and I had ducked into the woods in Phippsburg around 9:30 a.m., hoping to escape the July heat. No spring chickens, we ambled more than we hiked and only covered a few miles before…

For six weeks every October and November, Sean Flint spends two or three days a week walking through thick underbrush in Vermont and flushing ruffed grouse with his dog, Finn. Last year, Flint…

“We’re creating a model that can be replicated in other ecoregions. We must preserve these arks of biodiversity. Seed sovereignty is a tool of resilience in the face of climate…

Each fall, as days grow shorter and the sun dips lower in the sky, the last of the year’s run of Atlantic salmon swim through the cold waters of the Penobscot River and its tributaries,…

Every autumn, North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vermont hosts a banding station for migrating northern saw-whet owls, a common but seldom-seen woodland species. Tig Tillinghast…

Forests and rivers are inseparable in my mind. When I worked on the Penobscot River Restoration Project in Maine from 2005 to 2015, I became familiar with how this particular river changes its…

I’ve been spending many weekend hours up on our hill, cutting down stands of invasive honeysuckle. I use a hand saw and work slowly, stopping every time I hear the approaching chime of a…

For more than 200 years, dams built on waterways up and down the East Coast helped to move and sort timber, power sawmills and gristmills, and produce hydroelectric power. These dams shut off…